Random Wanderings and Wonderings
Today’s spring picture from the Leslie Street Spit shows us an artfully-placed traffic pylon pointing up at last week’s waxing gibbous moon, already high in the sky in the late afternoon.
As an aside, I always used to think this phase of the moon was called a waxing gibbon until I was old enough to realize that the term would more accurately describe an ape with a Brazilian.
Today’s photos of the Leslie Street Spit take us to the peninsula that contains the Outer Harbour Marina. The old ship’s bridge sitting on the peninsula’s tip is a familiar landmark to Outer Harbour sailors but is virtually invisible to most people visiting Tommy Thompson Park.
These pictures were taken in March 2004, before I had a high-quality digital camera. Looking at them reminds me just how much I miss Velvia and a proper fisheye lens. What I don’t miss is endless hours spent scanning slides. Still, I’m tempted to run a couple of rolls through the old camera this weekend. Maybe someday I’ll get a nice full-frame DSLR and have the best of both worlds.
I usually start stretching my cycling legs around mid-March each year, getting ready for longer rides in the season ahead. Although I commuted and ran errands on my bike throughout this winter, I hadn’t been out for any pleasure rides of significant distance since November. But when that sun starts melting the snow and the days start getting longer, the call of the road becomes too strong to resist. I don’t care if it’s still cold and windy outside; my legs want to spin.
The Leslie Street Spit is my most frequent late winter/early spring destination. It’s one of the few car-free places in the city where you can ride at this time of year and not worry about dealing with snow and ice. It’s also among the most photogenic destinations with a wider variety of landscapes than you’d expect of a long finger of dirt in the lake.
This beach, for example, is made almost entirely of bricks. The constant action of the water has worn away most of the corners so they look like colourful bars of soap. A few feet in from the shore, most bricks still have rough edges. They get smaller and smoother as they get closer to the water. At the water’s edge, they look like colourful little pebbles. In a few years, this could look like just another sandy beach.
In the middle of this picture, you can see mortar still holding the remnants of two eroded bricks together.
I’ll have more pictures from the Spit in the days ahead.
All of the heavy equipment was parked at the other end of the lot when I revisited the Unwin Avenue snow dump this weekend, so there’s not much in these photos to establish scale. The top of that pile of white snow at the centre of the picture above is about 8 feet high, if that helps. Enough of the snow has already melted that what’s left is indistinguishable from a pile of dirt from a distance. As the spring progresses, it’ll become indistinguishable from a pile of dirt even close up. All of this will be melting untreated virtually straight into the lake. The Don is also in for a rough spring and summer with melt from the snow dumps in the valley almost guaranteed to foul the river through July.
Even the Leslie Street Spit has gone all elitist, with this sign marking Tommy Thompson Park as being for Important Birds only. All of the unimportant birds (this means you, pigeons) have to stand around on the sidewalk outside the park all night waiting in vain to get in.
Imagine coming home from your March Break vacation to find this sign taped to the padlocked entrance to your apartment. Welcome back!
Update: This isn’t my place; the sign was attached to a Danforth Ave. apartment the other day. I doubt I would have had the presence of mind to take a picture if I’d returned home to such a sight.
These connections for the fire department are all over the city. Someone put a couple of eyebrows on this one near Chester Station to add a bit of character.
Chapter 400-14 of the Municipal Code of the former City of Toronto (which is still in effect, as far as I can tell) states:
C. No person shall throw any stone or ball of snow or ice, parcel, bundle or other dangerous missile or use any bow and arrow or catapult in any highway.
No bows and arrows or catapults on the streets? There go those meddlesome bureaucrats again, interfering with innocent medieval childhood fun. Next thing you know, they’ll be regulating flails and quarterstaffs.
As we sit through yet another storm, it’s worth remembering what this winter was supposed to be like:
Environment Canada, which issued its winter outlook Friday, says Toronto will be about normal in terms of temperature and precipitation, while The Weather Network, which issued its forecast on Thursday, is calling for above normal temperatures and below normal precipitation for the Toronto area. “We don’t think that,” Environment Canada’s David Phillips said. “They use a different model than we use.”
So reported the Star way back on November 30 (under the hopeful headline “City spared hard winter?”) just a week after we’d dealt with our first snowfall of the season. How did the prognosticators do? Thanks to Environment Canada’s tattletale forecast verification tool, we can tell just how far off they were.
The precipitation forecast was wildly inaccurate for virtually the entire country, with most areas marked in blue for “below average” on the forecast (bottom map on the link) ending up as red for “above average” after actual observations (top map). The temperature forecast was just as inaccurate, with almost everything except for a sliver of the extreme north and a patch of sea between Newfoundland and Nova Scotia ending up colder than normal. The less said about the Weather Network’s forecast the better.
So what’s ahead for the spring? The Weather Network (PDF) and Environment Canada are both telling us to expect normal temperatures and above-normal precipitation. If this past winter is any indication of their ability to predict the seasons, you may want to start planning for that spring drought.
I like winter.
No really, I do. I like the crisp air. I like the bright sunshine reflecting off fields of snow. I like seeing my breath.
I like exploring the city in the winter. I like stomping around the Don Valley with boots, gaiters, and snowshoes. I like taking off my toque after a hike and watching the steam rising from my shadow. I like skating. I like watching the wildlife in the backyard and park. I like looking out the front door on a Saturday morning and seeing a fresh snowfall. I like dodging all the piles of snow on side streets that make drivers slow down and be courteous to pedestrians and cyclists. I like stepping in little piles of slush and feeling it squirt out between my boot treads. I like walking through big puddles at intersections with my waterproof boots. I like being the first person to walk on the sidewalk after a storm.
I like shovelling at 2 a.m. after the snow has stopped but before anyone has packed down the sidewalk. I like hearing people say “Thanks,” when they reach the snow-free sidewalk in front of the house. I like watching drivers with summer tires trying to pull out of snowbound parking spots. I like cycling. I like talking to my neighbours about the weather. I like making fun of reporters who raise a huge fuss every time it snows.
I like wrapping my scarf around my face and pulling my toque down to my eyes. I like dressing in layers. I like wearing my lobster gloves. I like putting on long underwear. I like shaking snow off my jacket before I come inside. I like wearing Merino wool socks.
I like curling up on the couch with Risa and a hot chai. I like crawling under the duvet at night. I like rubbing Fletch’s belly while telling him how lucky he is to be an indoor cat.
But seriously, enough is enough. I’ve been ready for a few weeks now to start liking spring again.